Why We Invested in Pathwork: Reimagining Life Insurance Distribution with AI

I couldn’t be more excited to announce that Costanoa is leading a $3.5M seed funding round for Pathwork. Life insurance is an enormous market and critical product for families across the world, and distribution (e.g. Sales) is ripe for transformation using AI and related technologies. The Life Insurance business still relies far too much on manual work and paper processes. There’s been some change, but not enough from the days when my grandfather and great grandfather were both NY Life men in the Midwest. 

The point of automation in this business is to free up sellers to spend 1:1 time with their customers. Life Insurance is a considered and complex purchase, requiring personalized advice based on each buyer’s life situation. It also relies on the trust that comes from the Seller/Insured’s relationship, and the formation of this relationship can’t be rushed. Hence the need for time and space to be created, and AI represents a generational opportunity to streamline the mountain of tasks and processes necessary in selling and servicing Life Insurance products.

What stood out for us about Pathwork is the depth of thinking on what to build and how to bring it to market. That comes from the extensive experience of Pathwork’s founders, Ian Levinksy and Blake Butterworth. Ian spent years at EverQuote, effectively leading a line of business, and accumulating expertise in how the Life business agency really works and is shaped. Blake is a skilled technologist and product builder, having led teams from the earliest stages to scale. These two understand the automation problem they’re solving and their customer’s true needs, and have the drive and creativity to build a consequential company. As a result, they already have dozens of paying customers, revenue traction, and pilots with major carriers. And they’re just getting started.

This is exactly the kind of founder ambition and market moment we love at Costanoa. Starting with underwriting automation and commissions reconciliation, Pathwork is on its way to becoming the agentic workforce for the entire industry—replacing legacy incumbents, modernizing workflows, and ultimately owning distribution at scale. I’m so excited to be in their corner for the journey ahead.